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Evangelical Catholicity
Eric Hageman on a Name Change for the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod
In the October 2018 issue of First Things, Robert Benne detailed the ongoing collapse of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), by far the largest American Lutheran body. Among other things, Benne described a demonic mockery of baptismal vows ("Do you renounce the lie that Queerness is anything other than beauty?"), a church-sanctioned renaming ceremony for a gender-dysphoric child, and the eschewing of evangelical work to combat white colonialism. More recently, in February, The New Yorker profiled Nadia Bolz-Weber, an ELCA pastor who bragged about divorcing her husband of twenty years (and father of her two children) in search of better sex.
These developments are by no means unusual among Lutheran bodies. Like the ELCA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland endorses legalized abortion. At least sixteen bodies of the Lutheran World Federation—representing well over half of its 74 million members—condone "same-sex marriage."
Some smaller Lutheran bodies remain much more orthodox. In addition to Benne's North American Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) is arguably one of the most conservative religious bodies in the United States. Among other things, the LCMS rejects homosexual behavior as "intrinsically sinful," speaks out strongly against abortion and euthanasia, and refers to transgenderism as a "grave disorder."
Given these positions, one may fairly wonder why the LCMS shares the name "Lutheran" with some of the world's most liberal religious bodies. I certainly have. I am a born-and-bred LCMS Lutheran, the son of an LCMS pastor. My current pastor is a vice president of the LCMS. After over a year of prayerful discernment, my then-fiancée was confirmed into the LCMS from another denomination.
The question why we call ourselves Lutheran came closer to home last year when a dear family friend converted from orthodox Lutheranism to Roman Catholicism, in part because of concerns with Martin Luther's character (concerns Luther himself recognized). Likewise, explaining Lutheranism to my in-laws was made difficult by their (quite fair) assumption that to be Lutheran means "to follow Luther."
That explanation was made more difficult still by a large and growing epistemological gap between orthodox Lutheranism and the mainline Protestant traditions in which my wife and in-laws were raised.
Confessionalism & Anti-confessionalism
In addition to taking culturally conservative stances, the LCMS insists that its adherents confess its beliefs purely and uniformly. Those beliefs, regarding everything from communion to baptism to justification before God, are found in the Book of Concord, a sixteenth-century compilation of writings by Luther and Philip Melanchthon. To ensure confessional unity, the LCMS employs "close communion," such that visitors to our congregations, no matter how frequent or faithful, cannot participate in the Lord's Supper. And, as I have written in The Catholic Thing, the LCMS requires pastors praying in public to "avoid terminology that would allow those of other religions to conclude that they have the same faith or belief as the one offering the prayer."
Some American Protestants worry much less about such unity. Benne writes of a controversy that arose when it was discovered that the director of the ELCA's United Lutheran Seminary had once resisted the legitimization of homosexuality. Despite her timely "evolution" to more progressive views, she was removed from office.
Buried in the account was a fact that may seem anodyne: the director was a pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA). She held these two positions simultaneously, apparently without protest from either body—despite pointed disagreements between Presbyterians and Lutherans regarding justification, predestination, and a host of other issues. The ELCA and the three largest American Presbyterian bodies similarly practice open communion and ordain pastors of other denominations.
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